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Sean Maher: What to do about Boulder's drinking problem

By Sean Maher, For the Camera

Posted:
08/19/2012 05:59:01 PM MDT

Updated:
08/19/2012 05:59:54 PM MDT

Yes, we have a drinking problem.

College kids everywhere drink and create issues. However, new research shows that college kids in Boulder drink even more than average. Tuesday night, the City Council will discuss possible changes to Boulder's land use codes in an attempt to solve some of our local problems. The city staff has offered up several potential options including:

Label different types of establishments as either low or high risk and create new requirements to apply to each.

Require those restaurants and bars downtown and on University Hill that have been approved to stay open past 11 p.m. to go through an approval process every three years.

Potentially reinstate the 500-foot liquor license restriction around the University of Colorado, which would allow no new liquor licenses to be granted in much of the Hill business district.

As the council considers these and other potential remedies to the alcohol problems in Boulder, they should keep a few key points in mind.

First of all, the vast majority of our local owners in the hospitality business are good and responsible operators -- even those who cater to the "under 30" crowd.

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The fact that they sell alcohol does not mean they are out to push every drink possible on anyone with cash in their pocket. I know many of them well and I have seen firsthand how committed they are to doing the right thing. They are obsessed with making sure that no one who is too young or too drunk gets served a drink. Many of these owners have banded together to create the Responsible Hospitality Group to share best practices on stopping alcohol abuse.

Yes, as in any city with liquor outlets, Boulder has a few establishments that do a lousy job. These owners are either irresponsible or desperate for business and they need to be dealt with harshly.

However, punishing dozens of small businesses for the sins of a few is not a solution. City staff acknowledges that requiring all outlets on the Hill as well as east and west Pearl Street to be reapproved every three years will create a lot of extra work for them as well as the business owners. Instead of adding new hassles for everyone, why not focus resources on the relatively few bars that cause more than their share of problems?

The second point involves a lesson from history.

We learned in the 1920s that prohibition does not work. Back then, it drove alcohol underground -- and the same is true in 2012. Thanks to hurdles erected by the city, there are fewer "college" bars in Boulder today than back in the 1980s when I went to CU. As a result, drinking has been partially driven underground in the form of house parties. At these parties, there are no rules, no checking IDs and no controls on binge drinking. College kids will drink wherever they can.

If we limit access to the controlled environment of a bar, they will move to the uncontrolled environment of a private party. And that is more dangerous. I am not suggesting we encourage new bars to open in Boulder, but perhaps it is time to stop adding new hurdles for the majority of establishments that provide a safer alternative to private parties.

And this leads to a bigger issue that caused a huge debate a few years ago.

Is it time to admit that raising the drinking age to 21 did not work? More than 130 college presidents, including those from Ohio State, Duke and Boulder's own Naropa University, signed a statement in 2008 endorsing a legal drinking age of 18.

Their argument is simple and strong: Prohibition does not work. It was a failure for the whole country back in the 1920s and it is a failure for college kids today.

Boulder police Chief Mark Beckner agrees. He made a strong case on "60 Minutes," stating, "The abuse of alcohol and the over-consumption of alcohol and DUI driving are the areas we've got to focus our efforts. Not on chasing kids around and trying to give them a ticket for having a cup of beer in their hand."

Of course the drinking age is not for the Boulder City Council to decide, so I will drop that for now. But I do hope that, on Tuesday night, the council directs city staff to focus their efforts on enforcing existing rules as opposed to creating a bunch of new ones.

Our local hospitality industry is a big part of Boulder's economy and a big part of what makes Boulder such a great place to live. Let's give the good guys a break and crack down on the few who cause problems.

Sean Maher is the executive director of the Downtown Boulder Business Improvement District. Views expressed in this column are his own and do not reflect the position of the Business Improvement District or Downtown Boulder Inc. He can be reached at sean@dbi.org.

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